General Politics Discussion

[jamincan]

I get the need to vent after a frustrating election, but this is such complete BS. We have a broken electoral system in this country, and the NDP led such an uninspiring campaign - mostly telling people why not to vote for Del Duca, or why a vote for Person X is a vote for the PCs - that I don't think it's remotely fair to criticize voters for not showing up when there is absolutely no one to vote for.

I can't agree with this. I find it extremely selfish to look at the past four years of decisions the Conservatives have made, and look at the alternative platforms and believe that it doesn't matter. These results matter a lot to healthcare workers, educators, disabled folks and many, many more. 

There are a lot of reasons people couldn't vote this election and there are a lot of reasons people chose not to vote. Choosing not to vote this election wasn't making a point about bad choices it was making a choice in favour of the status quo.

I personally don't think not voting is making any point at all. But focusing ire on apathetic voters as if it's some sort of moral failing is a pointless endeavor. Ultimately, I believe that we vote *for* someone. If you can't make the case to 65% of voters that your party isn't worth voting for, that's your fault, not the voters' fault. Obviously it's frustrating when there is so much at stake and on the line, but let's point our ire at our political parties that fumbled the ball, since that is something that we might actually have some hope of fixing.

My personal example: as a left-leaning undecided voter going into this election that despises the Liberal Party, I was deeply disappoint to hear the NDP parroting the long-standing Liberal talking point of "a vote for X is a vote for Conservatives". I ended up voting Green knowing that my riding was probably in the bag for the NDP and liking Mike Schreiner, but there is nothing that pisses me off more than someone acting like their party is somehow entitled to my vote and as someone who actually believes in voting, I have never come so close to not bothering.